Submesoscale effects on changes to export production under global warming

Organic carbon export from the surface ocean includes both direct sinking of detritus (the biological gravitational pump) and advective transport mediated pathways; the sinking component is larger than advectively mediated vertical transport by up to an order of magnitude across a wide range of imposed sinking rates. The submesoscales are responsible for most of the advective carbon export, however, which is thus largely reduced in a warmer climate.

In summary, our results demonstrate that resolving more of the submesoscale has a modest effect on present-day new production, a small effect on simulated reductions in new production under global warming, and a large effect on advectively mediated export fluxes.